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Updated: May 23, 2025
As Elijah coerced this merchant into humility toward God, so he carried home a lesson to the great Tanna Eliezer, the son of Rabbi Simon ben Yohai. This Rabbi stood in need of correction on account of his overweening conceit. Once, on returning from the academy, he took a walk on the sea-beach, his bosom swelling with pride at the thought of his attainments in the Torah.
The prophet Ahijah, of the tribe of Levi, was venerable, not only by reason of his hoary age, his birth occurred at least sixty years before the exodus from Egypt, but because his piety was so profound that a saint of the exalted standing of Simon ben Yohai associated Ahijah with himself.
Elijah wanted to put Rabbi Joshua into communication with the departed Rabbi Simon ben Yohai also, but the later did not consider him of sufficient importance to honor him with his conversation. Rabbi Simon had addressed a question to him, and Rabbi Joshua in his modesty had made a reply not calculated to give one a high opinion of him.
R. Simeon, the son of Judah, in the name of R. Simeon, the son of Yohai, said, "Beauty, strength, riches, honor, wisdom, old age, a hoary head, and children are comely to the righteous and comely to the world, as it is said, 'The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness'; and it says, 'The glory of young men is their strength, and the adornment of old men is the hoary head'; and it says, 'A crown unto the wise is their riches'; and it says, 'Children's children are the crown of old men, and the adornment of children are their fathers'; and it is said, 'Then the moon shall be confounded and the sun ashamed; for the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before his elders shall be glory." R. Simeon, the son of Menasya, said, "These seven qualifications which the sages enumerated as becoming to the righteous were all realized in Rabbi Judah, the Prince, and in his sons."
The Roman emissaries desisted from their pursuit, for they could not believe that Rabbi Meir would choose such a companion. A contemporary of Rabbi Meir, Rabbi Simon ben Yohai, who spent thirteen years in a cave to escape the vengeance of the Romans, was informed by Elijah of the death of the Jew-baiting emperor, so that he could leave his hiding-place.
Upon the development of the Torah they had no influence whatsoever. His relation to the mystic science was of quite other character. It is safe to say that what Moses was to the Torah, Elijah was to the Kabbalah. His earliest relation to it was established through Rabbi Simon ben Yohai and his son Rabbi Eliezer.
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